Some years ago a young woman from the then Soviet Union came to the United States to study theology. The first time she went to an American grocery store she fainted dead away. Her senses shut down. Overload. Unending aisles and an avalanche of products. It was too much for her. [John Mogabgab, Weavings XVI.3.2.]

My recent experience at Super Target was close to that. I went food shopping there for the first time, feeling all the while disloyal to Tom Thumb. Scanning the cereal aisle, I looked for my morning staple, that sure-fire pick-me-up-and-keep-me-a-regular-guy Basic Four. Back and forth I walked, unable to find the familiar box. They all looked alike. Just when I was about to give up, I saw it right in front of my eyes.

I am afraid we are in just this kind of pickle as Christians these days. We have more information and more choices than we need, and we have trouble figuring out what it is we should want because everything looks of equal value. Too many of us don’t know what’s ham and what’s spam, what’s diamond and what’s glass. How do we develop the wisdom to see the good and do it?

The biblical Book of Proverbs is easy reading compared to the more difficult sections of Scripture, like Leviticus and Revelation. But it contains some profound wisdom that concerns questions of how we come to know what is good and do it. Wisdom is exactly the subject, in fact. My father has always taken the One-a-Day vitamin plan with this book of the Bible: A proverb a day keeps the foolishness away.

Our text today, Proverbs 9, is kind of a sandwich. It begins with a picture of how Lady Wisdom calls from her house to all of us pedestrians, inviting us to go in and enjoy the banquet of goodness she has prepared for us. It ends with a picture of another woman, Dame Folly, as she calls from her doorstep. She also bids us come into her house and eat. But the food and fellowship of the one lead to life and the other to death. How will we know the difference?

Compare the two women who call out from their houses. The first is clearly a respectable, hard-working lady. Her house has been carefully built; the seven pillars probably are a reference to the perfection of the cosmic order embodied in the house’s construction. Special care has been taken, in other words, to see that everything that happens in that house is in keeping with the best sense available. The meal she offers is carefully prepared with the best ingredients. It will nourish the soul as well as the body.

On the surface of things, the two scenes look alike, but if your lenses are focused, the differences are clear. Dame Folly is a painted lady, as they used to say, the picture of a prostitute. She sits lazily in the doorway of her house, doing nothing and knowing nothing. What she offers inside is forbidden fruit that she claims is sweet. The problem is that, like the fate of Adam and Eve, the sweetness in the mouth turns bitter in the bowels, which is, don’t you know?!, the bottom line.

A year ago I was in Florence, Italy, and most days I took the time to run along the Arno. There’s a lovely park on the west side of the city that stretches for several miles with jogging trails on the banks of the river. To get there, though, I had to run through some side streets. On one street was a house of Dame Folly with two painted ladies sitting in the doorway from morning till night, calling out to me each time I passed. The picture hasn’t changed in the four millennia since this proverb. And no, just in case you were wondering, I did not go in. Thankfully, I had enough sense to prefer an absent lady to a present dame.

But you have to want to. And that is the first point of the verses that form the crème filling to the Oreo wafers in this proverb. Lay aside immaturity, and live, verse 6 says. Another paraphrase says to give up shallowness and go deeper to find life. If you want to live well and know life as God intends it, you can’t be satisfied with superficial things. You have to want to go deeper than that.

In the more literal sense of the Lady and the Dame, you have to prefer the depths of intimate love to the shallowness of illicit sex. But the proverb is not really about sex per se; it’s about seeking what is truly good and lasting and meaningful instead of going for what is easy or sleazy.

I was appalled by an article Nick Nichols sent me from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about the new craze of selling statuettes of Jesus playing all kinds of sports. You’ve got your baseball Jesus, your football Jesus, your basketball Jesus. They make these little statues of Jesus in white robes with traditional Jesus beard, and he’s got a soccer ball or whatever on his foot or in his hand. He’s a real fun-loving action figure. The messiah’s got game! The Christian bookstores are doing great with this kitschy trinket merchandise. The most disturbing thing, though, is to read about the people buying these things. One Catholic woman says how much better it will be for a first communion present for her 7-year-old son. Instead of the traditional rosary or prayer book that will only be put aside, he’ll be able to see Jesus as a really hip, regular-guy messiah who relates to him every day, she says. [June 4, 2001: 1A, 11A]

Yeah, just what we need, a really hip regular-guy messiah! Listen, the Proverbs depict wisdom as something that calls out to us to learn, but something that is not obvious or easy. If we want cheap and easy religion, we are asking for what Dame Folly offers us, not for what Lady Wisdom wants to give.

I once had a man say to me something so startling and honest I–even I– was left speechless. He had been an active member of our church and served as a deacon and Sunday school director. He was a bright guy and successful in business. He had dropped out of Wilshire and said he was going to find a new church. I asked him why. He said, George, it’s your preaching. Nothing against you, but I have to think all week long in my work. When I come to church, I don’t want to have to think there, too. I just want a preacher who will tell me what I already know. So what do you say to a person like that?

This shows up in other things, too. Christian bookselling disturbs me for promoting pablum over nutritious food. If you want to publish a Christian book today and have many people buy it, write something short and sweet; write something easy for people to understand–something they don’t have to work at; write something that promises them something good and doesn’t cost them much to get. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the pitch of Dame Folly in this proverb?

Michele Blaker wrote a funny and poignant piece this week for our church newsletter the Tapestry. She confessed that since the birth of her children she has let her mind be fed by books that are the food equivalent of Big Macs. Says she: Time to wake up my brain from its nice little nap. It’s time again to look for the deeper books that make me think. Time again to read the Bible for myself. I am sorry I let my brain sleep so long, but it is going to be painfully fun to exercise it back up to working condition. I want it to be that when deep calls out to deep, I can hear and respond.

That’s the first thing important: that you want it to be. You must want to be wise. Second, you must want to be a lifelong learner. To do that, you have to learn to take criticism and seek guidance from the wise. Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach the righteous and they will gain in learning.

Tiger Woods is a phenom, we all know. He is a physical genius. No one can come close to what he has accomplished in golf in such a short career. But why is he at the top? I submit to you it is not just his talent. He works harder, stays fitter, and improves the little things more than any other player. Before he finishes a practice session, he forces himself to make 100 consecutive putts from 4 feet … with one hand! He works regularly with his coach, Butch Harmon, to know his swing and groove it. He is great because he is also wise, always learning, always willing to take criticism.

Foolish people cannot be taught. They are spiritual teenagers: bodies already hinting at adulthood, brain chemistry screwed up to the point they think they already are. But even children can be wise if they want to be.

Collin Yarbrough is a sixth-grader. He recently declined to go out with a bunch of his friends who were celebrating their grade school graduation. The plan was to go pool-hopping. This is a form a hooliganism new to an old codger like me. Seems it started with kids moving from one of their houses to another and just swimming in their pools. Then it progressed to jumping fences and swimming uninvited in pools of strangers. Then it led to leaving a trail of the offense by throwing pool furniture in the water as a calling card. Collin passed. His mother, Judy, asked him why he was home instead of out celebrating, and he said, Well, Mom, it just seemed like trouble to me.

Which is exactly the point of learning wisdom: coming to see things for what they are and acting accordingly.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, the proverb says. And here we reach the key point. The fear of the Lord is not being afraid of God. It is an awareness of God’s constant presence at the center of life. It’s living as though your life revolves around an invisible pole to which you are tethered.

Life can be like a merry-go-round. It whips you around, and sometimes all you can do is hold on and try not to fall off. A wise person is spiritually centered, just as a smart carnival rider will get to the center of the merry-go-round and find the ride smooth.

If you want to wise up, you have to go deeper. If you want to wise up, you have to listen widely to wise heads who will steer you right. And if you want to wise up, you have to center yourself daily in God.

There’s no magic in all this. If you do everything a proverb like this says to do, bad things will still happen to you. That’s life. But you’ll bring fewer on yourself, and you’ll be better prepared to face them when they come.

Just remember: the fool has many friends, the wise many children. It’s never too early or too late to do wise family planning.